The Night Before
by Major Clanger
Summary: Daniel Jackson thinks about what the re-formed SG-1 are about to attempt at the end of the S4 ep "2010"


Title: **_The Night Before_**  
Author: **Major Clanger**  
Email: majclanger@aol.com  
Category: Missing scene  
Pairing: none  
Spoilers: Season 4s _2010_, and some other titchy ones from other seasons  
Season: 4  
Rating: G

Status: Complete  
Summary: Daniel Jackson ponders what SG-1 are about to attempt before the final scene of _2010_

Disclaimer: Stargate SG-1 and it's characters are the property of Stargate (II) Productions, Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions and Gekko Productions. These stories are for entertainment purposes only, and no money exchanged hands. Really. Honestly. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations and stories are the property of the author. That is me, and I write under the name of "Major Clanger" for reasons that are unclear, even to me. These stories may not be posted elsewhere without my consent, although if you really want to, you could send me an e-mail and ask. After you get the smelling salts under my nose, I'll probably say "yes".  
Author's notes: This was my very first fic. That's all there is to say about it. This is actually a slightly revised version. Feedback or comments are very welcome.**__**

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The room was dim with only the light hum of traffic from the street below breaking the almost total silence. A light breeze blew through the open window causing the curtains to billow a little.

The sleeping form on the bed woke with a start and gave a small cry. He pushed himself up against his pillows rubbing his eyes and disentangling himself from the sheet which had somehow wrapped itself tightly around his legs. Shivering, although it wasn't really cold, he pulled on the pyjamas he had shed earlier. Slowly it filtered through to his sleepy brain that it was still the middle of the night. With a groan he glanced over at the clock.

2:34 am: still far too early to get up, too early for coffee – tempting though it was, too late for anything else. Shaking his head he tried to rid himself of the remnants of his nightmare and closing his eyes reluctantly, settled himself back down to sleep.

He drifted for a while in a sort of half-sleep, now enjoying the cool draft from the half-open window and the soft sounds of the city. His mind wandered idly back over his life and he smiled as he remembered the cabin in the woods, and how noisy it had been in the countryside. That had been a long time ago when he and_... Don't go there he told himself, and forced his thoughts in a less painful direction._

His brain wouldn't co-operate and he found himself thinking of Jack once more. Until a few days ago it had been a long time since Daniel had seen his erstwhile… what had he been? CO, certainly; colleague – of course; close... no, closest friend. Jack had been all of those and, somehow, more besides.

_I don't suppose he really considers himself my friend anymore. Daniel thought sadly, but still he couldn't deflect his thoughts from his memories of Jack. It was like picking at a scab, he really had to work hard to control that habit, even at the age of 45. Not that he got too many cuts and bruises these days. Daniel's lips curled in a wry smile at the thought that he actually missed the painful parts of his time at the SGC, and some of them had been very painful indeed. He sighed and tried once again to sleep._

Running! Breathless! Persuers! Caught!... Again Daniel jerked awake. His heart was beating fit to explode through his ribs and, he realised with surprise, he was sweating. He shivered again. His sheet was on the floor, and the previously cool breeze had turned distinctly cold. 

3:06am – he'd been asleep for just over half an hour, but the nightmare had been so real... he could almost feel the hot breath of the dogs (he hadn't realised he was being chased by dogs until that moment) on the back of his neck. Telling himself he was silly to be so frightened by a mere dream after everything he had been through, he stood up to close the window. The city had fallen quiet with only the occasional shout from a late-night reveller and the barking of a dog a few streets away and his breathing sounded loud in his ears.

Long experience of sleepless nights told him that he might as well get dressed and start his day, but he felt a reluctance to do this. Tomorrow – _no, today he corrected himself – was going to be, and he felt it was no overstatement to use this word, momentous._

Gargantuan.

The linguist in him searched rapidly through his own gargantuan vocabulary but he soon tired of looking for superlatives.

Huge. Mammoth.  Colossal. Monstrous.

"What's the point?" he asked himself. "The End. Fin. Ende. Finis…. That's what it is." 

Suddenly a song sprang to mind "…. 'It's the End of the World As We Know It' …Ha! Well I don't feel fine fine" he muttered.

It wasn't going to be a good day, whatever words he used. Daniel didn't want the dawn to break. He knew that, for him at least, there would be no more tomorrows whatever the outcome. He didn't mind admitting to himself that he was afraid. No, that wasn't it exactly. He felt sad, anger, and regret for what might have been.

Daniel recalled the words of the waitress as he, Sam, Teal'c and Janet had been having lunch the other day: "Will there be anything else?"

His answer of "Apparently not" had hung in the air between them all and then settled like a full stop.

He shivered again. This time it had nothing to do with the temperature.

"Well, I'm not going anywhere without some coffee in me."

Daniel roused himself from his reverie by the window. He went into the kitchen and mechanically started the process of making coffee.

'Hot and wet' was how Jack had always requested his but the smile that this thought prompted died on Daniel's face. They really needed Jack's help right now, and Daniel was truly grateful that he would be there for this one last 'mission' – but they still couldn't escape the fact that they weren't a team anymore. Hadn't been for longer than he cared to remember.

Daniel felt once again the despair that had washed across him as Sam reported Jack's adamance that he wouldn't be joining in their crazy scheme. It wasn't even a remote possibility. Then, unexpectedly, Jack had relented and just knowing that he would be there for them should have given the old SG-1 a lift, but… well, Daniel couldn't put his finger on it, but it didn't exactly fill him with joy.

He struggled to remember exactly how it had come to be that Jack wouldn't even talk to them anymore, but those thoughts really were too painful and he forced himself to concentrate on carefully measuring out his coffee. 

Daniel decided that he was hungry and started to forage. Yes, 'forage' was the right word, he decided, and cursed when he realised that he hadn't stocked up for a while.

"Should've married years ago" he mumbled into an empty cupboard – but he'd never found anyone after Sha're.

He'd spent so long looking for her, then her child and it hadn't seemed fair to marry someone and keep such a huge part of his life secret from his new wife.

"Like it would be fair to take a wife just so that I wouldn't have to suffer an empty store cupboard!" he snorted. 

Anyway, after he had become well-known, it had been nearly impossible to meet anyone at all – they had all wanted something from him, but didn't have anything to give. Not what he wanted at any rate, not what he needed. So he had remained single, and lived with empty cupboards and nothing to eat when he woke in the middle of the night.

A habit, he had to admit, which was one of his worse vices. Right up there with the scab picking.

Foraging around some more he found some cereal. Daniel supressed a smile as he remembered Jack eating only oatmeal for breakfast for months after that strange time-loop thing.

"Just my luck!" he thought as he tipped the brightly coloured, stale, cereal rings into a bowl – and sighed again when he realised that he'd have to eat them without milk. He emptied them into the trash and took his mug of coffee into the living room.

Daniel looked slowly around the room. He felt more comfortable here than he had anywhere else, with the possible exception of that all too short year he had spent on Abydos. Thinking of it brought him back to his thoughts of Sha're and her son. He would regret forever – _Ha! that won't be very long – that they had never found the Harcesis child. Perhaps if they had things would have been very different._

But one of  Daniel's characteristics – _A virtue, he thought__, to add to the list of my vices – was that he lived for the future, didn't waste time regretting past actions (or inactions) that couldn't be altered._

Or could they? Once SG-1 had found themselves in 1969 and now they were about to try time travel again. Daniel badly wanted to dive through the Stargate himself with Sam's message tomorrow – _today – out of curiosity __– Insatiable curiosity… vice or virtue? He mused. __Let's chalk it up as a virtue to balance the list. – to see how things would work out. _

He allowed himself a brief smile as he imagined Jack's reaction to having two Daniel Jacksons on the SG-1 team. Two civilians to whom he would have to explain military protocol – again and again. Two civilians to protect. Two civilians to endure. He barely managed to stifle the snigger that nearly escaped his lips, despite the seriousness of the situation.

_Ah, to hell with serious. He thought. __I can have all the serious I want tomorrow... ah, today._

Daniel conjoured up once again his mental image of an exasperated Jack burdened with two Dr. Jacksons, and this time allowed himself a broad grin as he drank his coffee. Now he let his memories of Jack come flooding back without trying to block them. The first time they met hadn't gone well but the rest was history. Daniel winced at the thought that now there was even an SGC museum which dedicated a large section to SG-1's past in excruciating detail.

After a coffee refill he returned to the living room and wandered around coming to a stop in front of  the wall where the fireplace had once been. The fire had long ago been replaced by central heating, but the surround was still there, and Daniel's mantlepiece housed the traditional display of framed photographs and other memorabilia of an event-filled life. He picked up one of himself, Sam, Jack and Teal'c shortly before they had met the Aschen.

They all looked so happy, so completely at ease with each other. And, apart from Jack he supposed, none of them had really changed. Teal'c had finally managed to rid himself of the mark he had borne as the First Prime of Apophis, the detested symbol of his people's subjugation.

Thinking of Teal'c made Daniel speculate if he was having second thoughts about agreeing to help them. He now lived a peaceful life on Chulak, his aim achieved – his people free of the Goa'uld. Daniel wondered, not for the first time, at his friend's unswerving loyalty to the planet Earth.

He looked down at the photograph again. Sam and Daniel – _thanks to the Aschen's 'anti-aging' technology, he thought bitterly – looked the same now as they had back then. Even ten years ago Jack had had a lined face, had gone prematurely grey. But that was almost inevitable given the life he'd had. Daniel thought about how Jack had looked the other day, he must be in his mid 50s at least by now._

_A bit more craggy. He thought. __I wonder if he's actually caught any fish yet?_

Daniel's eye then fell on a picture of Major General George Hammond, the man who had been more of a father to him than a boss. The Aschen had killed him, of that he was now sure. He gripped his cup tightly, his anger was almost tangible now. But it wasn't really directed at the Aschen. It was himself he was angry with. Himself and eveyone else who had fallen for their beguiling, superior technology.

He was angry with Sam for not spotting the signs sooner – dammit she was _married to one of their chief collaborators! He was even angrier with Joe for subjecting Sam to all of that._

_He must have known how badly Sam would take the news! _

Joe. It would be easy to lay the blame for all of this at Joe's feet. He knew that this was irrational, he knew that no one single person was to blame, but still it was tempting. Hell, Daniel was even angry with Jack, even though Jack had been suspicious of their new _'allies' from the start. He had pointed out time and time again that there must be a catch. Cliché man had resorted to repeating the same line over and over like a mantra: "There's no such thing as a free lunch"._

_But he could have done more! – Daniel realised that this was totally absurd, Jack had done what he could but he was only one man, after all. Anyway, by tradition Sam and Daniel had been the 'brains of the outfit'._

_How could I have been stupid enough to ignore Jack though? The question had never been far from the surface of his consciousness since Sam had broken the awful news of the Aschen's systematic destruction of the human race. _

Daniel turned away from the memories on the mantlepiece and went back for more coffee. He took it into his office, he hated to refer to it as a den as though he were some sort of lion, and sat down at his untidy desk. There was no escaping the past, it was everywhere.

"Well it would be, wouldn't it?" He said to his computer. "I'm _am an archeologist, after all!"_

He gave himself a weak smile. Probably if he had ever seen a shrink they would have confirmed that he preferred to live in the past, because when something was done and finished it had no more power to hurt him.

Although that wasn't strictly true. Sha're was the past, and the pain of losing her had dulled but never quite left him. Living for the future didn't work for Daniel – too many opportunities to be let down and disappointed. He cast around in the deep recesses of his mind for some happier memories. 

As always his year in Abydos came leaping to the forefront. He had dared to hope, to look forward to a future with Sha're – that hope had come to nothing. For the first time Daniel examined what those hopes had really been. Children? Certainly, but after that? Could he, would he have been happy there?

In a strange way he was glad that he hadn't had time for the novelty of living there to wear off. It still grieved him though that the price of ridding the Abydonians of their Goa'uld masters had been so many innocent lives. But then, if those parasites hadn't taken his wife he would never have joined the SGC. Never have seen most of what the Stargate project had shown him. Never met Jack, Sam or Teal'c. Never recommended a treaty with the Aschen…

"A circular argument, Dr. Jackson, get to the point." He admonished himself.

He scanned his memory for something more recent… ah yes… his speech at the Smithsonian after the existence of the Stargate had finally been revealed to an incredulous public. Daniel settled back in his chair, put his feet up on his desk and cradled his mug against his stomach. He wanted to enjoy that moment once more. 

He knew he didn't have much time, he couldn't resist a glance at the clock – 4:37 am,  two hours since he had first woken – but he wanted to savour his moment of triumph again. Upon reflection, triumph wasn't really the right word for it. He delved through his prodigious vocabulary and came up with capitulation. Not really the right word either, but what the hell, there wasn't anyone around to complain about that.

The moment when Earth had offered itself on a plate to the Aschen had come afterwards, but his speech – his speech, nobody else's – had been the first indication to an unsuspecting world that there were indeed worse threats to mankind than flood, famine or daytime TV. 

There was war.

Make that War. With a capital W. 

From outer space.

Those warnings had come later though, giving that speech he had indeed felt triumphant. He had enjoyed his moment of finger wagging 'Told you so' to the academic community which had previously written him off as a total loser. The looks on their faces as he had explained the Goa'uld – especially their pyramid-shaped motherships – were almost worth all those years of academic exile.

_Had almost been worth. The ever grammatical linguist corrected himself. Because with what he knew now, he wished with all his being that he had never had that moment._

If Sam's plan worked, he never would.

Daniel leaned his elbows on his desk, resting his head in his hands, and allowed himself a momentary sadness for the Daniel he once had been. The one who had fervently hoped for the day when he would be able to stand up and tell the world about his discoveries. That he hadn't been wrong. That there was more, so much more to learn about humankind, and that most of that knowledge wasn't even on our planet.

Daniel was sad that he now wouldn't have his moment in the sun, that there weren't going to be any 'told you so' lectures now. He wasn't selfish or egotistical, he had wanted to share his knowledge, use it to benefit everyone. Wanted to call in experts and specialists to help him devour all of the information that the teams were bringing through the Stargate.

He pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger and told himself that the 'old Daniel' would say that they were doing the right thing. That the reason for the SGC was the preservation and not the destruction of mankind. He remembered Sam's disapproval of time travel _– Time travel! I'm making it sound like a trip to the corner shop! He snorted at his blasé acceptance of what they were about to attempt – and her fervour for this effort. And he knew that they must succeed. _

Daniel still had some nagging doubts though. Surely they were playing God in wanting to change the time line? He'd had more than enough of a bellyfull of false Gods, and he didn't want to number amongst them himself.

"No, it was our mistake, we have to correct it ourselves." He rationalised. If for nothing else, at least they would have another chance to find Sha're's son, maybe he would be the key to mankind's long term survival.

Daniel leaned back in his chair, his coffee forgotten and cold, and let his thoughts drift in a random pattern over his life. That first rush of… what had it been? Pleasure? Satisfaction seemed too weak a word to describe how he had felt when he had first uncovered the secret of the Stargate glyphs.

The first time he met Jack. How he had detested everything that uniform, and the man inside it, had stood for. Seeing Sha're for the first time when she had offered him water after their trek through the desert. Sam, the 'sister' he'd never had. Meeting Teal'c, that first ray of hope that he could help restore his wife to him, and the bitter disappointment when he realised that it could not be.

That last time with his grandfather before he had gone away with the strange giants. Sam's despair when she realised her father was dying, and her joy at the solution to his illness. Daniel had liked Jacob, his death had come as a blow to him. Like losing his favourite uncle. Sam had been inconsolable, but by then she had Joe to turn to, and Daniel hadn't been around much to share in her grief.

Once again his thoughts turned to General Hammond, and then, as a moth is drawn inexorably towards a flame, his thoughts alighted upon Colonel Jonathon O'Neill.

Intolerant of scientists and intellectuals. Impatient of incompetant civilians.

"OK, Jackson, how many adjectives beginning with 'I' can you think of to describe him then?" Daniel derided himself. Jack O'Neill. Incommensurable.

"Enough already, no more I-words!"

The nearest thing Daniel had had to a family. The man who had saved his life countless times. Who had saved his sanity – Daniel shuddered as he remembered his mercifully brief stay in a padded cell.

The man who had had faith in him, merely because … well why had Jack had so much faith in him? Daniel couldn't put his finger on it, but knew that his faith was reciprocated. Completely. SG-1 had been a team, but Jack had been the anchor point. The king pin. The cornerstone. And they had let him walk away. Just like that. They hadn't wanted to hear the truth.

It was a bitter pill to swallow, but Daniel faced up to it at last. Nobody had wanted to listen to Jack because they were tired of fighting. Tired of the lies they had to tell to outsiders. Tired of the secrecy. Tired of fighting politicians who wanted to spend the billions allocated to the SGC on sure-fire vote winners. Tired of it all.

Believing in the Aschen was the easy option, and like fools they had taken it. Maybe a species as lazy and foolish as the human race didn't deserve a second chance….. Daniel shook that thought away. The Aschen had been very convincing, still were. Daniel found it incredible that they were trying – _they've nearly succeeded! – to wipe out mankind. But now SG-1 would be a team again. Now they must undo what they had done. It was their duty._

He woke with a start when his coffee splashed onto his leg through the thin material of his pyjamas. Daniel hadn't realised he was asleep again. He impatiently dashed away the irrelevant thought that it would stain – _It's not going to matter in a few hours. – and headed off to the bathroom._

7:10am – he would have to hurry. Sam had probably calculated Daniel's customary lateness into her schedule.

"Not lateness, impeccable timing" he had said more than once.

It cut no ice with the military, however. When the USAF says 07:00 they mean 06:55 Sam had gently explained. Jack had not been quite so subtle. He'd never given up trying to improve Jackson's punctuality. He'd never succeeded. A fact that had made him snort that he wasn't there to 'babysit civilians' and then change the subject rapidly whenever anybody had commented on this failure.

Daniel wanted to do this one right. For Sam and Jack and Teal'c. Showered, shaved, dressed and ready to go, he paused in the doorway of his appartment and looked around for what he expected would be the last time. He knew in his heart that he would never return, and he hoped it would be because of their success, not their failure.

A few hours later, as he sank to the floor, his final thought was of Jack. That he had been there to help them. As his eyelids slowly closed the last thing he saw was something leave Sam's hand… describing a graceful arc – it seemed almost to move in slow motion - towards the event horizon, towards the past, towards SG-1 in 2000, towards those who would know what to do with the information it contained.

~The End ~


End file.
